not liking CT

On Saturday afternoon, we left for our 12-hour drive to western Pennsylvania to spend Thanksgiving and celebrate Christmas with Nathan's family, visit with some of my family, and see a couple of friends. We have found that since having kids, it is best and easiest on everyone to leave in the afternoon/evening and drive into and through the night. Well, if this was any indication of how our trip was going to be, we had packed the van and buckled in ready to head out when Nate put the key into the ignition, turned it, and NOTHING happened! DEAD BATTERY! After jumpstarting the van and throwing the jumper cables into the back, we were off!

The trip was going well with the kids taking an afternoon nap as we made our way down south. When they awoke from that glorious time of day, we prepared ourselves to stop for supper...McDonald's in Worcester, Massachusetts! A trip to this particular McDonald's in this particular city was an adventure in itself! First of all, McDonald's is not Nathan and my top pick of places to eat, but Ivy LOVES McDonald's and it's a real treat for her since we rarely go to the place. Second, it has a PLAYGROUND in it which breaks up the trip for the kids and allows them to stretch and move their legs and have a break from sitting and riding.

As we were walking in to eat, we were approached by a man who indicated that he was a Lieutenant in the U.S. Coast Guard and that he and his wife were traveling and far from home when something went wrong with their car (I can't remember what it was now), he just happened to forget his wallet at home, his wife was next door with the car at Denny's, and he needed some money to get it fixed. What do we do? Well, I took Ivy and continued to go inside leaving Nate and Owen outside with this man...(don't ask me why I didn't think to take Owen with me!). Well, Nate determined that the man was just a con artist trying to scam us and was inside the McDonald's shortly thereafter.

While ordering our food, I soon wondered if we were still in the USA and realized that our family were the only people who really spoke English in the entire place...even the people behind the counter spoke really broken English! We soon got our food and enjoyed our meals as much as possible, and we were back on the road after a short time of playing at the playground.

A short while into our trip, Owen decided that he wanted the trip to be over with and let us know about it. It just so happened that the moment he decided he was done with this drive, we were just entering the state of Connecticut, and he managed to unconsolably cry and scream through the entire state of Connecticut (which was about 1 hour and 45 minutes worth of driving)!!!! The moment we crossed the border leaving Connecticut and traveling into New York, Owen settled and fell asleep! For some reason, Owen just did NOT like Connecticut!

Well, it was that time of night where the kids fell asleep, and we were quietly making our way the rest of the way to Hawthorn, PA! There wasn't much traffic on the roads, but it seemed that when we did see a vehicle, it was usually swerving in its lane which always makes for some scary driving!

Praise God that we made it safely and remained SANE!